Scott worked as a poet and attended Temple University with the intention of becoming a teacher, but left school to take up a drama apprenticeship. She landed a part in a Canadian touring production of Rent, but, finding the repetition of a staged musical creatively stifling, left the show in 1999 to focus on her own projects.

Jill is an artist with an abiding, deep commitment to lyrical honesty and musical integrity. Simply put, if Jill Scott feels it, she writes and sings it. While vivid imagery, metaphor analogy are her stock in trade, there’s no pretense, no hiding. She’s upfront, in your face, always real, using her own distinctive poetry to breathe life into words, digging inside to bring forth the accompanying emotion. It is that authenticity that has endeared Jill Scott to everyday music buyers who hear what she’s saying through her music and respond according.